56 pages • 1-hour read
The Teller of Small Fortunes
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Chapters 9-11Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 9 Summary
Content Warning: This section of the guide includes discussion of racism and emotional abuse.
After the troll departs toward Whitelake, Mash and Silt fall behind while Tao and Kina travel ahead to Craghorn, a prosperous mountain town at the major land pass connecting eastern and western Eshtera. Noticing a Guild mage, Tao quickly hides her face. The women find a tavern where they eat and discuss their adventures. Kina acknowledges her privileged life compared to the others’ hardships, and Tao assures her there’s no shame in this. They discuss purchasing another wagon for Kina’s baking supplies and agree on sharing their earnings. Tao then informs Kina that Silt seems to be falling for her, which Kina admits she’s aware of but doesn’t reciprocate.
The next morning, Kina asks Mash and Silt to find a cart for her, and they depart to look for one. In the inn’s kitchen, Kina experiments with new recipes and shows Tao her new invention: fortune cookies containing paper slips with Shinn characters and their translations. Tao is deeply moved by seeing Shinn writing again and enthusiastically approves of the business idea.
At breakfast the following day, Kina confronts Silt about his unwanted attention, comparing him to a macaron—sweet but lacking substance. She explains that he’s never actually asked her about herself or shared anything true about himself. Embarrassed and angry, Silt storms out while Mash and Tao awkwardly continue eating.
Later that day, Silt returns and apologizes to Kina, admitting he treated her like a prize rather than a person. They agree to start over as friends, properly introducing themselves and sharing their fears and aspirations. The mood lightens considerably when Mash receives news from a watchman that a metal trader in Craghorn spoke about his brother, a river trader, finding a child in his boat near Windmere. Mash hopes the child might be Leah, and the watchman promises to send the metal trader to their tavern the following day.
Chapter 10 Summary
The next day passes in anxious anticipation as the group awaits the trader who might have news of Leah. However, instead of the expected trader, the Guild magefinder bursts into the inn demanding Tao answer a summons to the Guildtower in Margrave. He explains the Guild knows who she is and that her mother and stepfather are in Margrave. When Tao refuses, he threatens to call the guards for assistance. Seeing her distress, her companions create a chaotic distraction—Mash flings food, Silt spills ale on the magefinder, Kina pretends to be accosted by him, and Fidelitus attacks. During the uproar, Tao escapes into Craghorn’s streets.
Disoriented and panicking, Tao ducks into a small shop managed by an elderly Shinn shopkeeper. The man excitedly speaks to her in their mother tongue, but Tao can no longer speak much Shinn and feels shame at this loss. The shopkeeper helps her by giving her directions to salt caves north of the city where she can hide out. He also presents her with a clay Shinn flute engraved with a phoenix.
In the salt caves, Tao takes stock of her meager supplies and plays the flute, which evokes memories of her father, who used to play the same instrument and even taught Tao to play it. She also reflects on her complicated relationship with her mother, who married an Eshteran nobleman after Tao’s father died. When Tao turned 15, she asked her mother why they weren’t celebrating with the traditional ji ceremony, where young Shinn women receive a ji or jade hairpin. Her mother said they were Eshteran now, so they wouldn’t be having the ceremony. Afterward, she curtly gave Tao her own ji, instructing her to hide it from her stepfather.
Meanwhile, after narrowly avoiding arrest, Tao’s companions search for her in Craghorn. Finally, they decide to leave the town and head north. Mash uses the witch’s luck potion Tao had given him, hoping it will help them find her. As the group travels north, they scan the cliffs for any sign of Tao.
When they stop for lunch, Fidelitus catches the scent of the dried fish among Tao’s supplies and leads them to her hiding place in the salt cave. Reunited, they make camp in a hidden gully where Tao expresses her gratitude. After a hearty meal, Mash composes a ballad about their adventure, receiving enthusiastic applause. The warrior-poet modestly deflects Kina’s praise that he should be a bard, explaining he’s too busy being their friend and protector. Tao smiles at this acknowledgment of their deepening bonds, feeling a profound sense of belonging she hadn’t experienced before.
Chapter 11 Summary
As the group continues northward through the mountain pass with Silt riding beside Tao, she explains why she left Margrave. She reveals that after her father died and her mother married an Eshteran nobleman, they moved to Margrave where Tao faced constant prejudice. When her stepfather discovered her fortune-telling abilities, he planned to give her to the Guild of Mages, which would bring prestige to his house. Her mother blamed Tao for her father’s death and did nothing to stop this, so Tao ran away. Though she struggled initially, she found life on the road more freeing than her constrained existence in Margrave. Mash notes that Tao’s mother failed in her parental duty to protect her.
At the mountain outpost, they find an unexpectedly crowded resting-house filled with merchants traveling west. That evening, two plainly dressed merchants with fraying coats approach, asking Tao to read their fortune. Tao is hesitant because she does not want to draw the magefinder’s attention by using her powers, but she agrees. The merchants reveal that they are transporting grain and wool west to escape a new Crown statute requiring merchants to sell certain goods to the Crown at fixed low prices or face seizure. Using her fortune stones, Tao sees them celebrating at a feast in a harbortown, suggesting they’ll find a buyer for their goods; however, she also senses an unexplained conflict that she chooses not to mention.
Tao and her friends continue on their journey, and on their third day, they are stopped by Master Jacopo, an agent for a wealthy collector. He offers them a quest to retrieve a mysterious treasure from the Splinthorn Woods, though he doesn’t specify what it is. In return, he promises that his employer will fund a kingdom-wide search for Leah if they succeed in their mission. Despite concerns, Mash decides the chance to find Leah is worth the risk.
Chapters 9-11 Analysis
The theme of Finding a Sense of Home in Relationships dominates these chapters as Tao’s companions evolve from casual acquaintances into chosen family. When Tao flees from the Guild magefinder, the group risks their own safety to create a chaotic distraction, showing the depth of their connection. After reuniting with the group, Tao experiences a profound sense of belonging, which contrasts with her estrangement from her biological family. Their growing connection helps Tao to share vulnerable truths about her past, acknowledging that her companions “had taught her that to share a little of her old hurts, the memories that pulsed and throbbed at the very center of her like a dark star, did not make her weak” (171). This sense of emotional safety grounds Tao, and she no longer questions her place in the group or wishes for protective solitude.
The theme of Navigating Identity Amid Prejudice and Expectation emerges as a central conflict through Tao’s encounter with the elderly Shinn shopkeeper, revealing her complicated relationship with her heritage. Her inability to speak her native language triggers a “rush of shame that […] was a hot, visceral thing” (151), yet she simultaneously recognizes the unfairness of being expected to maintain cultural knowledge while navigating discrimination and forced assimilation. Tao’s reflection on her childhood reveals the impossibility of her position. She says: “‘You cannot paint stripes on a donkey and call it a tiger.’ Even if I spoke Eshteran, and wore their lace petticoats, and danced their silly dances—I was not Eshteran” (172). She voices this by using a Shinn idiom, highlighting her dual heritage.
The jade ji hairpin symbolizes Tao’s conflicted cultural identity. It connects her to Shinn traditions, but rather than receiving it in a proper ceremony with “loving words of pride and encouragement for a daughter now become a woman” (158), as is Shinn custom, her mother curtly hands the ji to her with instructions to hide it from her stepfather. This object embodies both connection to heritage and painful rejection, representing how minority identities must often be concealed for protection in hostile environments.
The Weight of Foreknowledge threads through these chapters, particularly as Tao grapples with the moral consequences of fortune telling. Her commercial readings contrast with her more profound visions, symbolizing different relationships to knowledge. When reading fortunes for the merchants, Tao sees conflict in their future but deliberately withholds this information, demonstrating her fear that full disclosure might be harmful. This selective approach to truth relates to her refusal to use her “greater vision” after the traumatic incident with her father, underscoring the tremendous burden of foreknowledge. Tao wonders: “What if all I can see is death and destruction?” (173). Her fear is related to her concern that neither she nor anyone else has the power to change future outcomes. In essence, she believes that her magic gives her knowledge without power.
The motif of food, particularly Kina’s baking, as a cultural and emotional connector deepens character bonds despite differences. Her invention of fortune cookies represents a meaningful cultural fusion, combining her Eshteran baking with Tao’s Shinn heritage. When Tao sees the Shinn characters on the slips of paper Kina has placed within the cookies, Tao experiences “a strange and wonderful feeling” (135). This collaborative creation helps bridge her cultural displacement. Food also becomes symbolic when Kina describes Silt as “a macaron” that is “sweet and airy and light” but lacking “substance” (138), using a culinary metaphor to voice her objections to his romantic overtures. These descriptions establish food not merely as sustenance but as a symbolic language for connection, character, and cultural identity. The characters’ shared meals that punctuate their journey become ceremonies that strengthen their developing bonds, culminating in “the merriment and good cheer” that follows their reunion after Tao’s flight (168).
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